[kwlug-disc] Bitrot and atomic COWs: Inside ???next-gen??? filesystems | Ars Technica

[Jason Locklin]

On Wed 22 Jan 2014 01:48:38 AM EST, unsolicited wrote:
> On 14-01-21 04:20 PM, Chris Frey wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 05:58:21PM -0500, Paul Nijjar wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 09:27:46AM -0500, L.D. Paniak wrote:
>>>> A quick overview of what makes "next-generation" filesystems like ZFS
>>>> and btrfs different and necessary:
>>>>
>>>> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/bitrot-and-atomic-cows-inside-next-gen-filesystems/
>>>>
>>>>

That article was the impetus for me to try it out for the first time 
while rebuilding a home micro-server from an old netbook with a 8Gb SSD 
(and broken screen). Turning on compression and running a "defragment" 
brought my Debian install from about 1.8Gb down to under 600Mb, with no 
obvious slow-down. Funny, it was the first time I have ever run a 
defragment on a Linux system! Brings  me back to my Win ME days! lol.

I figured it was a good place to start because at 8Gb, I can easily do 
bare-metal backups in case I run into a fs bug. It has a bit of a 
learning curve, so I'd suggest doing some reading before doing anything 
fancy with it, but it's really exciting.
-Jason Locklin